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AutoWake questions

Hey guys. Some of you know me, but I am Matt Brown and I am the Moomba product manager. I have seen several questions about AutoWake and thought I would start a thread on it to try and help. The first question I will answer is from 2 other threads about what is the new "Amplitude" bar or graph. We are launching the 2018 stuff in a few days so I can't go into too much detail, but the idea is for 2018 we have added a draft sensor that shows how deep the boat is really sitting in the water at any time. In the past all you had was ballast gauges (which are really timers) and you had to approximate how much passenger weight you had. Now for 2018, you can tell at anytime how deep the boat is really sitting in the water. Where that adds value is on Saturday when you go out and have a huge wave, you can now see what the pitch and roll is, but also exactly how much weight you are displacing. Think of it like having the X, Y, and Z parameters of the boat. On Sunday when you go out with only factory ballast and 2 passengers and you don't have a really huge wave, then you can again compare the pitch, roll, and displacement. You will eventually find the "magic line" of minimum displacement that you really need to get the wave size you desire. As always, your size, skill level, board shape or size will all dictate where that magic line needs to be, but at least now you will know really how much water you are displacing at any time. While the amplitude bar does NOT add to the displacement or make the wave bigger, it does give you a nice visual that you didn't have or don't have in other boats. Passenger and gear weight is the one variable that always seems to get overlooked. I get questions all the time about how to set up boats for wakeboarding or surfing, but no one ever remembers to say exactly how many passengers they have and where they are sitting. All I usually get is "where does my ballast need to be", or "where do my plates need to be". The truth is the X, Y, And Z axis (Pitch, Roll, Displacement) are ALL critically important and work together. Pitch and Roll make the shape of the wave. Displacement makes the size. And as it is often said, "There is NO replacement for displacement". You can't make a huge wave without displacing a lot of water.

In addition for 2018, the Amplitude bar also has an "AMP" setting beneath it. It shares a name and general location on the screen, but it actually has a completely different purpose. When trying to teach new riders or smaller riders, sometimes it is necessary to scale the wave back a little. Personally I have a 10 year old that loves to surf. As he was learning, sometimes when we got the wave too large he had a hard time keeping the board away from the transom. To fix that, we would reduce some of the ballast. That is where the "AMP" setting works great. If you are teaching a new or smaller rider, you can reduce the wave size by just reducing "AMP" from 100 to maybe 50 or 75. It also works nice for when you want to recreational ski, kneeboard, tube or other wakesports where 100% ballast is not always required, but you want AutoWake to hold a specific pitch and roll. It also works well when you want to cruise across the lake and not worry about where people are sitting. I think we can all relate to the time when you are trying to get back to the dock and 6 people are sitting on the port side having a conversation and the boat is running with a list. By reducing AMP to 5 or 10%, then AutoWake will level the boat with minimum ballast and allow you to drive back to the dock without completely filling your ballast.

Hope that helps explain the Amplitude Bar and "AMP" setting. I will continue to add helpful hints about AutoWake and how to use it as I get time....

very awesome write up, that should bring the auto wake to the next level for sure. Funny how after using it this year thought how handy it would be if it would do that, think I have a post about it somewhere too. Super exciting for the 18 , add that with the dual pumps per bag ,maybe little bit bigger surf plates ,will be sweet for sure. Thanks for the info Matt. Might have to test out a new Mojo when they show up.

I guess I really should have started with a better explanation of what AutoWake does and what it can do to add value. As I said before, the wave or wake of a boat is created by the water that is displaced by the boat as it moves through the water. To keep it really simple, the shape of the wave is defined by the pitch and roll of the boat as it displaces the water. (The Flow plates, wakeplate, and any other device of the boat that disrupts water does affect this shape but we will discuss that later). The overall size of the wave/wake is defined by the total water that is displaced. If you have 10,000lbs of boat, ballast, passengers, gear going through the water, then you will displace twice as much water as a 5,000lbs boat, ballast, passenger, gear boat. The 10,000lbs of water will generate a really large wave and obviously will be probably twice as big as the 5000lb boat assuming they displace water at same pitch and roll. While that seems like basic information, sometimes people don't really think about it that way. I get questions all the time about people having issues getting a good surf wave or not having enough push and they want to know where to put their flow plates or wakeplate. After asking a few questions, I find out they are in a boat that weighs about 4000lbs, they have less than 2000lbs of ballast and passengers, they are a 200lb rider and they are trying to ride a 4'6" skim style board. The truth is that just will not work very well. It doesn't matter where you put the flow plates or wakeplate or even what the pitch or roll is, the truth is you probably just don't have enough displacement to create a large enough wave with enough push for a rider of that size on a board that small. It reminds me of the Bee Movie and the theory that Bees should not be able to fly. (Side note - that Myth is not accurate, google it..) So, can a 200lb rider ride a 4'6" skim board behind a Mojo with only 2000lbs of ballast? Yes, they can. I have proven it. But I promise you it isn't easy and if you don't know how to pump like a mad man, it probably would not be fun.

So, that takes me back to AutoWake. You might ask what displacement has to do with AutoWake, but it is very important to actually understand how displacement works first before we spend too much time talking about pitch and roll. AutoWake is NOT a ballast system. AutoWake is a system that controls the "tools" on the boat to try and maximize where the plates are located, where ballast is located, where passengers are located etc, to get the boat back to displacing water at the same pitch and roll every time so that you can have the same shape wave or wake every time. What AutoWake can NOT do is make a 6000lb boat the same as a 10,000lb boat. Let me explain it this way, the 2018 Mojo has a marketed dry weight of 4,400lbs. The ballast system is 3,000lbs and the capacity of that boat is an additional 2,500lbs. So, if you took a 2018 Mojo, filled all the ballast and total capacity, that boat could displace legally up to 9,900lbs. Granted, if you have that much weight in the boat you probably would struggle to get on plane, but that is the full potential of the boat. If you took the same boat and filled the front to only 50%, port side to 100%, stbd side to 80%, and 1 driver that weighs 200lb, then you actually only have 600lbs in the front, 900lbs on port, 720lbs on stbd and 200lbs in passenger for total of 2420lbs in ballast and passengers. Add the 4,400 of boat weight and you are a total of 6,820lbs. Compared to the 9,900 potential, you are WAY less in overall displacement. AutoWake can move ballast around to get the correct pitch and roll, but AutoWake can not add an additional 3,000lbs of displacement. As we say all the time, there is NO replacement for displacement. Pitch and Roll do NOT generate size or push. Only displacement can do that.

Again for 2018, we tried to add that visual with the Amplitude bar. Now at anytime you can see what your real "Potential" is in overall displacement. Now that we all understand exactly how displacement works and why it is so important, then we can start to talk more about what pitch and roll are doing and how the system actually works to try and maximize ballast while doing that. Stay tuned for more tips later....

AutoWake questions

Thanks Matt. One additional question. Considering many of the Moomba boats are marketed as "Surf Edition", why doesn't SC ship those boats from the factory with the largest bags possible for the rear lockers? When I bought my 2017 Craz it only had 650's in the rear lockers, but being a "Surf Edition" it had the center tank and additional under-seat bow bag. Like you said, for a 150# pipsqueak that would be fine, but I could not surf it without upgrading to 1100# bags in the rear. And I still add an additional 750# bag on the seat on the side we want to surf on. I also believe in no replacement for displacement. My point is, SC needs to ship these boats with the biggest bags that fit in order to be showroom comparable to your competitors, because face it, a lot of boat buyers don't expect to have to upgrade a state of the art boat to make it surfable. Just my $0.02. FWIW, I grew up surfing in the ocean as a grom, so I'm not a newbie when it comes to surfing. Thanks in advance!

I might get in trouble for saying this, but we did design the system to be retrofittable. You will have to contact your dealer about ordering the parts to add the draft sensor and it would be a little work to get the draft sensor installed and in exactly the right position as obviously that is very important, but the 2018 software will work on 2017 boats with AutoWake. In future posts, I will also talk about the new predictive logic, pop ups to maximize passenger seating, and other improvements that should greatly improve your performance with AutoWake.